|
That's Just My Opinion
By Henry A. Honig
In order to appreciate the current situation in the Middle East, perhaps a history lesson would be in order.
After World War I, much of the Ottoman Empire came under British control. A large part of the territory under the British Mandate was called Palestine. This was the first time in history that the name Palestine was used in defining a particular territory. In 1948, the newly formed United Nations broke up the British Mandate of Palestine into many new countries. Among those countries were Jordan and Saudi Arabia, two places that were really amalgams of small sheikdoms that, again, had no real basis in historical geography. The modern state of Israel was also founded at that time. The difference was, of course, that there had been a historical Israel, In addition, the Jewish people had been there, living in that exact territory, for over 3,000 years. Another country was to be formed at that time. It was to be called Palestine. The population was to consist of the indigenous Arabs who lived there, people who did not even officially call themselves Palestinians until 1967, when the Palestine Liberation Organization came into being (as a spokes group for terrorist organizations like Fatah, much the same way Sin Fein represents the political side of the IRA). The land was to come from what is now part of Jordan. The other Arabs convinced the residents of the proposed new Palestinian state to go to refugee camps in Jordan and wait for Israel to be "pushed into the sea."
Of course, Israel wasn't pushed into the sea, and the people who were to reside in the new Palestinian state remained in the refugee camps. Meanwhile, their Jordanian "hosts" kept telling them that Israel had stolen their land, even though that land was to have come largely from Jordanian territory.
Additionally, any land on which Arabs lived in the new state of Israel was bought and paid for by the Israelis. The Arabs were paid cash for their land, at market value, and were then supposed to relocate to the new Arab state of Palestine, onto land they were to receive at no cost.
Then came the wars. First, Israel was attacked in 1948, immediately upon becoming a state. Then the Arabs attacked Israel in 1956. Israel was winning the war and had even captured the Suez Canal, but the United States convinced the Israelis to return to their pre-war borders in the interest of peace. Egypt rewarded the US by closing the canal to our ships. The Arabs attacked again in 1967. This time the Israelis won a decisive victory in six days and refused to retreat to their old borders. Remember, until Israel captured East Jerusalem after the 6Six Day War, it was considered a part of Jordan, not Palestine. Only after that war did the Palestinians decide that Jerusalem had significance to them. When it was part of Jordan, they didn't care all that much.
On Yom Kippur of 1973, the Arabs chose the holiest day in the Jewish calendar to attack. Again, they were beaten, and Israel kept the territory that was captured in 1967, although they did return the Sinai to Egypt and parts of the Golan to Syria after the Camp David accords. Considering that these territories were won in defense of their nation, Israel should be considered generous for having taken these steps. Instead, the land captured by Israel as a result of Arab invasions to this day is called the "Occupied Territories."
Long before these various wars, the Arabs practiced terrorism. Their targets back in the '50s tended to be school busses full of unarmed children. They have grown to add restaurants, shopping malls and hotels. Now, they have even chosen a religious observance as a target for their terror by committing the Passover Massacre.
It is important to note that none of these targets have military significance. The strategy here is to kill just for the sake of killing. That is what makes this strategy so repugnant. In any of Israel's actions against the Arab countries, only military targets have been attacked. While war is never civilized, there are certain ways to fight wars that limit collateral damage. This has always been Israel's strategy. Collateral damage is and has always been the terrorists' way of doing business.
In the meantime, the Arab leaders continue to spread falsehoods, some of which have been around since the Crusades. Most recently, the officially sanctioned Saudi press published a report claiming that Jews need the blood of Christian and Muslim children in order to celebrate the Passover Seder. This should not surprise anyone, as the whole situation is based on 50 years of lies, commencing with the lie that the Jews stole the Palestinian's land, when, in reality, it was the Jordanians. The militancy of the Palestinian refugees comes directly from being forced to live in camps and being told that it was the Israelis that caused this to happen.
I had a conversation with some young people. They told me that all Israel had to do was give land to the Palestinians, and everything would be just fine. I asked them if they had ever heard of the 1938 Munich Conference. They hadn't. I explained that in 1938 Hitler had demanded that Czechoslovakia become part of Germany. A conference of world leaders was held in Munich after which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain emerged stating that we had found "Peace In Our Time" by ceding Czechoslovakia to Germany. A few months later, Hitler attacked Poland. So much for "Peace In Our Time," The great American philosopher, George Santayana taught that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. That is why Israel should never consider rolling over and giving in to the demands of their enemies.
As I stated earlier, Israel has never initiated a war with their Arab neighbors. Every war in which Israel has fought has been a direct result of their being attacked. All of the land that Israel has captured was as a result of these attacks. Never before in history has the victor in a defensive war been forced to return captured land to their attackers. Yet Israel has already given Sinai to Egypt and Golan to Syria. Why should they give more to people who, in the final analysis, want their destruction.
Consider, if you will, that, with all their protestations about wanting a peaceful settlement of the problem, Arafat and his PLO partners have refused to change their charter to remove the demand for the total destruction of Israel. Further consider that King Abdullah of Jordan in an interview with CBS' Dan Rather stated that he will not take any Palestinian refugees into his country and away from their homeland. This, once again, ignores the fact that it was the King's grandfather, not Israel, that took the Palestinians away from their homes and that over 60% of the prisoners in Jordan's jails are Palestinians. Knowing that, why would he want any more Palestinians to move to his country?
President Bush is now demanding that the Israelis withdraw from Palestinian towns now. Have we withdrawn our troops from Afghanistan, knowing that there are still pockets of Taliban and Al Queyda resistance there? Of course not. Why should Israel be asked to do what we ourselves know would be a mistake?
We need to face the fact that the Arab governments, most notably the Saudis, are supporting the terrorists, both spiritually and financially. We need to know that Iraq has offered the families of the suicide bombers cash payments as a reward for their relatives' martyrdom. We need to understand that the Big Lie, which was Adolph Hitler's method of creating believers, is now practiced on a daily basis by the Saudis, the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Iranians, the Syrians and all of the other governments in these artificially created states in the Middle East. We must accept that the Palestinian terrorists are the same people who were responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, We, finally, must come to understand that the governments of the Arab world do not want peace with Israel. Their first goal is to eradicate the Jewish state and the practice of Judaism in that state. Their second goal is to then eradicate the practice of other religions, most notably Christianity in that area. And their final goal is to eradicate the practice of all other religions throughout the world and establish theocracies similar to the one that existed in Afghanistan prior to the overthrow of the Taliban. If you don't believe that, consider the fate of the world's oldest statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan. In the end, we must not listen to what the leaders of the Arab world say in public, in English. We certainly must not accept their official translations as being accurate. We must, instead, listen to what they say to their own people, in their own languages, as translated by our interpreters. Only then will we realize the true duplicity of these governments, and the path they are trying to take us down. Only then will we be able to develop a policy that benefits not only our country, but our only true ally in the Middle East, Israel.
But That's Just My Opinion.
|